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of fruit and friends…

Pineapples and strawberries.  Yes, it’s still winter, but here in Chengdu, you can find pineapple and strawberries everywhere!!  Men and women are in the streets selling pineapples whole (50 cents) or quartered on a stick (15 cents).  Yummy!!!
On my way to the market on Sunday, I was stopped by a young woman who asked, in English, “which country are you from?”  Come to find out, she’s a student at the foreign language college, and has been studying English for about 6 years!!  She “coincidentally” needed to buy vegetables as well, so she accompanied me, talking the entire way - a little Chinese, but mostly English.  She never bought anything, but insisted on helping me carry my purchases back to my gate.  She was so sweet, and it was so good to speak both English and Chinese.  I’m excited to see if this friendship will grow.  It would be so good to have a Chinese friend outside of school!
Incidentally, we’ve eaten all the pineapples and strawberries already, so I get to go buy more today.  We’ll enjoy them while they last!! 

still going

The fireworks are still going.  As I write this, I have a perfect view of them from our seventh story rooftop office.  Any other time I would love it; now, it seems a little old.  (In case you aren’t keeping track, they have been going since the days before Chinese New Year - January 29th.) 
Fortunately, the demonstrations are now short-lived.  I think they are running out of ammo.  Soon, peace will prevail!  (And with peace, sleep)

Friday Quiz Bowl

It’s Friday evening!  The weekend awaits.
The week was a normal one, if that is possible.  Wednesday held 3 after school meetings taking us to 9.30pm, but it was fun - we had a dinner meeting discussing a new opportunity to reach out to the local community through music.  Sarah and I are always interested in opportunities when music is involved…
Today was a busy day at school.  In addition to daily classes, the morning was filled with age-appropriate rounds of quiz bowling.  The Kindergarten-2nd grade was amazing!  The topic was social science, and they were coming up with answers for questions I don’t think some of the middle or high school students would have known.  All in all, a good time, but very busy; lots of set-up and take down.
Which is why the weekend came at a perfect time. 
Tomorrow, we head into town for Peter’s Tex Mex - the first time in almost a month!  It’s been too long.

weekend update

Yesterday morning a technician came and set up our Internet connection for us, so we can now communicate with the world from home!  (We now have broadband rather than cable - we’ll see if there is any difference.)
Because of the new connection, you can now find out all about our trip to Malaysia.  You can see the journal we kept of our time in Malaysia by going to our downloads page. 
Hopefully, we will be getting things moved around and placed in our house over the next month or so, as well as getting the appropriate furniture… then we will make sure to show you our new place!

we’re back (and the fireworks are still going)

We got back from Malaysia Saturday afternoon - a great, relaxing trip!  We wrote a journal about our trip, and have hundreds of pictures… as soon as we get an internet connection up and running at our new apartment, we will be sure to get both of them up on the site.
If anyone really likes fireworks, then China is the place for you.  The Chinese New Year was January 29th following the lunar calendar, and nightly there have been fireworks… lots of them… very close to us.  Frankly, we weren’t impressed.  A couple of nights is nice; then it starts to get old.  But hey, if you like them, come check them out!  Just be here during the new year (or the 2 weeks after).